James,

Another week, and the foundations appear to be shaking more severely, as the people appeal to the rule of law in an eleventh hour attempt to forestall the inevitable. But the laws we’ve promulgated for ourselves and for nature are at the center of this crisis. The trajectory has not changed significantly. So it is best for us to strap on our seatbelts, and prepare for impact. Whoever remains standing must be prepared to sort through the ruble and find their way forward. Best, kulturCritic

http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/shaking-the-foundations-beyond-the-rule-of-law/

I have been participating in the Occupy Charlotte marches. Looking forward to the DNC coming to town.

Bloomberg has shown his true colors with OWS by saying that we can't blame the banks for this economic mess. Great sound bite and a complete lie.

There is no politician that will lead the way. The people must wake up and lead, then the politicians will come running from behind. OWS is a great start. OWS has a lot more support than is shown in the media.

leaner - now that is funny

Valley Forge indeed: Those opposed to the OWS movement are counting on the cold weather to disband the group in NYC as winter sets in. In Charlotte, the protest marchers are fewer in number than five weeks ago, but the number of tents has greatly increased. There is something happening here, and what is ain't exactly clear.

JHK writes:
"What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that."

Unsurprising (in that we've seen the suppression of shame as a national modality), but truly sad and disheartening.

Soldier on, James, soldier on. Awareness may arrive in the worst of ways, but arrive it will...

Re "The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food"

Ahhhh Jim.... you almost got there... almost nailed the BIG ONE.... but you just couldnt do it could you Jim?

Even though it's staring you in the face - and getting ready to kick-off World War 3 - you just couldnt find it in yourself to name names could you Jim? You had to pathetically try to defelect attention & settle for weasel worlds like "Jesus terrorists" didnt you Jim?

Have you no shame?

Sign the petition at GetMoneyOut.com It is literally the least you can do.

In addition to the need for an honest leader who will speak the truth about the REALITY of resource scarcity, climate change and the long emergency, radical change is desperately required. Matt Taibbi has clearly and concisely articulated 5 demands the Occupiers need to focus on: 1. Break up the monopolies....There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled.
2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about.
3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him.
4. Tax the hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break.
5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later.

Realistically, I doubt any of these changes will be effected, but we must not give up.

I wouldn't count on Bloomberg to know what the hell is going on. See this excelent takedown by Matt Taibbi: Mike Bloomberg's Marie Antoinette Moment:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103

Face it, there's no one out there to save us. I wish we could draft Chris Martenson to run.

So we finally might get a third party candidate and it's going to be Bloomberg. Excuse me while I violently vomit. We might as well resurrect Ronald Reagan's corpse - being braindead is apparently a requirement to be president.

Matt Taibbi did a great job this week of taking down Bloomberg:

Mike Bloomberg's Marie Antoinette Moment
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103

Mandatory Motoring
Mandatory Motoring
Mandatory Motoring

Alas, the words I've been looking for! Thank you Jim! My great state's motor vehicle code has quite the backasswordsness that doesn't allow for ELECTRIC BICYCLES. I'm chasing politicians and complaining that I am forced to pay $3.50 per gallon to commute. I still ride regardless almost daily and simply talk my way out of tickets as best I can. After being at the TOY Store this weekend, I found out you can make your own Bike License Plates for the kids... But instead of Joe or Billy I'll be making my own E-BIKE plate.

How about the TAR SANDS Protest yesterday? Any clusterfuckers attend? No mention of that Jim? It seams right up the Peak Oil alley and an historic event to say the least.

Off to the roof now...

PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

Any bicycle will do, it doesn't have to be electric. Even small ICE powered bikes and cargo bikes are appropriate technology for the times.

http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com

Jim:

Your four orders of business should be the platform for a new political party along with planned population reduction and ecological balance.

Bloomberg is a fraud. He's on record as saying, only several days ago, that the banks didn't cause this crisis.

I was told OWS is planning a march on Washington in April. See you there!

"After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors."

Actually it is a myth that corporations care about their shareholders. Mostly they care about their officers. Sometimes some of their board members. The shareholders are by and large just objects to be fleeced. That is why debt trumps equity in bankruptcy proceedings.

I can't help but think that had we elected Hillary we would not be in nearly this bad of a state right now. I do hope there is someone else out there but somehow I don't think so. The republicans are scary and the democrats are incompetent. Where does that leave us? Too many questions. No answers.

I don't think it possible at this point to legislate a change in the corporate personhood doctrine, given the line of Supreme Court cases establishing it -- right up to Citizen's United in 2010. I think a constitutional amendment would be required at this point. I agree that Glass-Steagall of 1933 (there were more than one Glass-Steagall Act) should be re-enacted. Oddly, and unfortunately, I think, the Laroushies seem to be the main ones pushing re-enactment of Glass-Steagall. Soldier on, Jim.
Phut.

Jim
Ahh I see you got up nice and cranky this AM, your wordsmithing is really up to par. Particularly loved the "suck-ups" part, so applicable to the national scene.
But I am a bit disappointed that no mention was made of the great Greek fiasco. The absolute horror expressed by all the "Western Democracies" to what? Why a democratic vote being offered to the people of Greece. The hypocritical outcry against the referendum proposed by poor old G. Papandreou was simply deliciously, viciously ironic. It just doesn't get any better than that, the public acknowledgement that democracy simply won't be tolerated. Mindboggling is the open disavowal by "Western Democracies" and shows that democracy is just one more PR campaign with about as much substance as the promises of the current resident of the White House. Jim, you missed a golden opportunity to practice your brand of vituperative wordsmithing, what a shame. Oh well, we can be certain that other outrageous events will occur in the near future in this Clusterfuck world.

So, as I have said before, I will pop up some popcorn and watch from the peanut gallery the unravelling clusterfuck in real time. With chagrin, horror, amusement, and a brewing terror as things spin out of control.
loveday

Jim: Again, stellar thoughts and effective expression on your part.

I'd only add that if the 1st order of business is accomplished - getting money out of the currently hijacked, "pay to play" system of representative government, the remaining reforms will follow.

In Denver, a school board race garnered in excess of a half million in contributions, many from out-of-state interests seeking to extract control of a public asset to serve private interests.

In addition to the 5 demands accredited to Matt Taibbi should be:

6. Anyone ehem, I mean corporation and therefore its' executives that receives [b]public money[/b] a [i]bailout[/i] is therefore considered a public servant and therefore should be paid the same wage as a public servant with equal experience. For example the highest pay bracket of a gov't worker

So, any executive of Behemoth Bank should receive about 100K per year. No stocks, no bonus no nuthin'.

Hey JHK, heard you on the Keiser Report and saw your comments about Bloomberg today.

Before hoping for change from a billionaire like Bloomberg, read Matt Taibbi on "Mike Bloomberg's Marie Antoinette Moment":

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103

Bloomberg would deliver more of the same from the 0.01% and above class. Just like he has for NYC.

I see Paul Krugman has a surprisingly good post about solar energy and fracking this morning. Should get some word out there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1320676666-+baEF1bPWq7OhzPvwzZh1w

Of course, it would have been better if he had pointed out that solar needs to go hand-in-hand with conservation, as there's no way solar energy will replace our fossil fuel use. But hey, he's only got so much space, so I'll cut him some slack. And as long as he was in partisan mode, I wish he'd pointed out that not only is the GOP dedicated to only ussing fossil fuels, they are also opposed to all forms of mass transportation.

And another related article: The Dark Side of the Green City:

"Across that valley lies 1,000 square miles of low-density tract housing, where few signs of greening are evident. That’s no surprise, given the economic free fall of a region that had been wholly dependent on the homebuilding industry. Property values in parts of metro Phoenix have dropped by 80 percent, and some neighborhoods are close to being declared “beyond recovery.”"

"In the Arizona Legislature, talk of global warming is verboten and Republican lawmakers can be heard arguing for the positive qualities of greenhouse gases. Most politicians are still praying for another housing boom on the urban fringe; they have no Plan B, least of all a low-carbon one. Mr. Gordon, a Democrat who took office in 2004, has risen to the challenge. But the vast inequalities of the metro area could blunt the impact of his sustainability plans."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/in-phoenix-the-dark-side-of-green.html

Cheers!

The mainstream media has shaped our discussion in the context of the beliefs and ideologies of the left and right. Shaping this duality into a workable compromise is the way to go. The reality is that the discussion was never based in reality.
Two wrongs don't make a right. The occupy folks realize this ,but are finding it difficult to articulate the path which will take us beyond what must be left behind. Reality of existence is sustainable dynamic balance, anything that compromises is erroneous.

Moral Relativity

JHK,
Excellent post today! You have covered the gamut of issues we are facing in one fell swoop. I recommend anyone who didn't catch JHK on Max Keiser yesterday to check it out.

Last night on 60 Minutes they interviewed Jack Abramoff, the poster child of rampant corruption during the Bush years who has served time in jail and has now written a book. Just a little aside, here. Is 60 Minutes now the PR book peddler company for those who have done wrong to sell their books?(last week it was the Madoff family).

Abramoff as one (victim) said so elegantly could "...talk a dog into getting off a meat truck." A. a devout Orthodox Jew claims that he was so far into the system that he couldn't tell right from wrong. Is that how it happened in Germany? The system is so rotten that you no longer see the forest from the trees?

Well the right wing Christianists know something's wrong and attack moral relativity that they claim is the left wing moral compass. So they claim those who believe in social justice are godless. Crazy conclusion, alright. So they protect the guilty and their huge profits at the expense of all others and attack the very tenets of their religion. Who are they worshipping exactly? Their greatest passion is to end abortions (& birth control) and repudiate all the progress of the 20th century, but is there a right to life after birth?

A few years back I was very concerned that our popular culture seemed to embrace organized crime, starting with Mario Puzo's The Godfather through "The Sopranos" They elevated Myer Lansky and Bugzy Siegel to Icon status. Usually when these thing take hold, you understand in your gut that this is the Zeitgeist of your time. Is this the culture we all unconsciously accepted?

On 8/22/10 I wrote:
The Myer Lansky Special: The US as Murder Inc.

The hero from WWII made an offer to the world that they couldn't refuse: Pax Americana and has pushed full-spectrum dominance in areas of military and finance to the tune of non-ending wars and the dissolution of the middle class.

Listening to Gerald Celente interviewed by Max Keiser this morning made me think about what this country has become and it couldn't be more depressing.

This country is being run by Public Enemies of the state and it's citizenry. Madoff may have been one of the few to pay a price, but everyone from think tanks, academia, media, insurance, banks and heads of state are complicit in this disaster.

Our media does not connect the dots and when it does it disappears into the ether to be replaced by mindless propaganda that pushes hate to divide the 95% of the population to keep us from focusing on the real issues. Celente points out that even with the extreme weather conditions in the world this summer nobody is talking about Global warming or at least the massive pollution that is spewed into the environment for the sake of making money to the enth degree.

Note: Last week I was struck at how the PR for BP has absolutely insulted our intelligence! They have the nerve to tell us they are flying planes over the Gulf to look for oil slicks after they used Corexit to hide the oil at the bottom of the gulf. Wow!! There was a great site that spoke about Corexit being used recently at night so nobody could see what they are doing. Hurray for Burson Marsteller, who are most likely behind the BP propaganda, though I can't prove that yet. Just imagine that they are intricately involved in our politics.

This interview is one of the best I've heard from Celente and it covers the full gamut of what has gone completely out of control. His time-line for deep world wide depression by the way is similar to JHK.

He discusses everything from the illusion of hope to the insatiable need of those with multi-billionaires to make ever more money and how our interest rates are kept low for the speculators.
The elite have done so well with Iraq and Afgh. they know they can't miss with more war...stay tuned for Iran...

In the vernacular of Sarah Palin: How's that Paxi-Americani working for you?

Buster J,
There is little in your post that is anything more than a personal attack, so I don't deem it worth a detailed response.

When James K calls for closing down the war industry he is right to do so.
I write from Melbourne Australia, and
in just two weeks Obama will be here on a brief visit and we're told that he is anxious to increase the US use of bases here and perhaps build new one

The rise of China is cited as the reason for this new defence commitment,though how bases in Australia could help the defence of the USA is not explained
Our PM,Gillard is an admirer of Obama and will agree to whatever he wants..though it will cost him!
Lucky the USA is so rich !

No one will save us, we must save ourselves, with new ideas. I think RON PAUL offers some new ideas: end the wars, shrink government, stop printing money, end the drug wars, etc. At least he is talking about these ideas while the others Talk the Same Old Trash.
That is why the mainstream media ignores him: be IS. Speaking some truth to ignorance. I don't agree with all of his ideas, but it is a start. Peace all.

Has no one on this blog heard of Ron Paul? And, Jesus terrorists? As in, all of those Christians killing and burning out the Moslems in Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, etc.?

Wrapping up last week...

CF: YES! I think we'd have a whole lot more skinny vegetarians running (moping) around if people had to be responsible for their own meat! Conversely, I think a lot of existing vegetarians would convert if they saw some of the best pastured production systems in operation, and the alternative to the CAFO death camps (in fact that does happen regularly). So maybe a wash.

Anti: I like that, just 'Anti'. Meds now "outkill" autos in the US. Isn't that something? Medicine kills more people than the 40,000 Americans killed by autos every year. I thought meds were supposed to help people? And I get a hard time about my vaccination policy...please people, wake up, the problem is systemic. Stop trying to cherry-pick the "good" things industrial culture has done for us from the rubble. There are vanishingly few. Maybe refrigeration?

IX: Re: mob-grazing, if you think I'm that stupid why do you read my blog? Oh gosh, no, we never considered any of that other stuff you brought up. We're just a bunch of addle-brained bimbos throwing a hippie party. How much fun!

James,

It looks like you're reiterating the platform you outlined in "My Tea Party" from July of 2010, minus the restrictions on immigration. While that will likely displease your more racist readers, it makes me happy. Remember that I told you that the Coffee Party would get on board with most everything else you proposed, but especially everything having to do with what we call "The Cycle of Corruption," which is explicitly about your first two items of business and implicitly about the rest, as it prevents acting on them in the name of the fossil-fueled status quo. I'm one of the people with access to our Blog Talk Radio channel. I'll ask the rest of the leaders to see if they think it's a good idea to contact your agent to see if I can interview you as part of promoting your Kunstler Cast book.

Speaking of the Coffee Party, we had a rally in Washington on the 29th, where hundreds of people came out in the driving freezing rain to listen to people who said "Enough is Enough" to our corrupted political system, one of whom happens to be the only major party candidate who is stepping forward with an anti-corruption, pro-Occupy Movement message as part of his campaign. The candidate is Buddy Roemer, former governor of Louisiana, who is ruhning for the Republican nomination. He's worth checking out.

As for the major national figure contemplating a third-party run, it's most likely Bloomberg, in which case, you can forget him doing what you are asking for. He's a socially liberal plutocrat, but a plutocrat nonetheless.

During the past two weeks, I blogged not only about the Coffee Party and the Occupy Movement, but also about the world reaching 7 billion population, Paul Krugman being parodied in The Onion, and the foreclosure crisis. Right now, the top entry on Crazy Eddie's Motie News is about how the miles driven by American when adjusted for driving-age population, peaked in 2006 and are still falling. Looks like the days of Happy Motoring have been coming to a close for five years now. Peak driving, anyone?

http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/

I can understand that Kunstler likes to pin his hopes on any movement in US politics that claims to seek to challenge the status quo.

Thus he had hopes for Obama, even though there was little sign that Obama either comprehended or had any intention of seeking to deal with the greatest problems our nation faces: peak oil, population growth, and massive indebtedness.

(his latest economic proposal involves levying a new tax on the rich and immediately spending 10 years of the revenue on spending for his political friends. I witnessed this sort of Governmental Enronomics as a resident of California (fortunately, I have managed to escape that ineptly governed hellhole).

Now Kunstler pins his hopes on OWS, which does at least know that something is very wrong in this society, but has very little comprehension of what it is, and to the extent that it has any agenda, appears to be desirious of "doubling down" on government spending, accelerating the death spiral of government indebtedness.

He will be similarly dissilusioned with OWS as he was with Obama. In the case of OWS, however, it is really rather ludicrous to harbor any hope even at the outset that it will lead to anything positive. At least Obama did have some knowledge of public policy issues, something the vast majority of the OWS protesters do not.

"Who will be the new breed of genuine patriots? It would be nice to suppose that something noble and intelligent might emerge from the current miasma, a reality-based third party."
Yes, perhaps someone like YOU, James. At the very least, with your wordcrafting expertise you should become a speechwriter for any other candidate who shows signs of intelligence and a good grasp of the current realities. (Ron Paul?)

As always, a bittersweet pleasure starting off the week with a dose of Kunstlerisms.

from this perch in the forest of a third world country, I can't help but noticing how much angst appears to be somewhat self-referential, associated with the ongoing and inevitable decline of a country which pigged out for too long at the global trough and is now suffering many of the chronic debilitating diseases associated with a generation or so of gluttony.

The magical thinking, happy-faced future based on genetically engineered algae based bio-diesel or solar and wind deployed as 'fast and furious' as weapons into Mexico is just as likely to devolve into any of the various regional 'fracking' scenarios portrayed in The Long Emergency.

Having lived for a couple decades in a 'backward' agricultural area of Costa Rica, I get daily insights into the resilience of my neighbors and am left shaking my head at the woeful inadequacy of "Americans"--and residents of other developed countries--to retool their lives, their societies and their expectations to the long emergency which is enveloping them, chapter by riveting chapter.

When Richard Heinberg suggested that the response to the ongoing tumult was to start an eco-village, I, for one, took the ball and ran with it. www.puebloverde.org

Great article as usual. How about Ron Paul?

Thanks P. Krugman. We in Pennsylvania are becoming the sacrifice for the nation. FRACKING is as common in my Western PA area as McDonalds and WALMART. Farmers are losing their water and farms but collecting big lease checks and leaving their neighbors holding the bag. The gas companies,the Dept of Evironmental Protection, and Penn State University are blessing the Marcellus Gas Industry as if it were the second coming. Even though the bromide/brine levels are destroying our public water sources eg. the Allegheny River/Monongahela Rivers, the industry says.......don't worry be happy. Our Republican Governor, Tom Corbett, who took millions of campaign dollars from the industry is running around the State with his group of money bags saying that we are the Saudi Arabia of the gas industry. Out townships are being over run by gas company lawyers turning over zoning. Wells are being drilled in housing plans, school campuses, dairy farm corn fields and soon in all the State Game Lands and Parks.
Of course, in 2005 VP Cheney/Haliburton was behind the secret potion of chemicals used for fracking being exempt from the clean air and water act. How soon will it be until the residents of Pennsylvania will be the CANCER poster children of the world............

In Australia the debate about "fracking" and it's damage to the earth itself is just starting.
The politicians are runniong scared,and the gas industry is all a cashed up...but there is a growing public alarm and our growing Green party is taking a leading role in the opposition..with 9 Senators in the Federal senate and members in most state legislatures the Greens are a coming force

Americans could do with such a group

Signed the Get Money Out petition, too...

Well Jim, how 'bout you run!.... I'll vote many x's!

I've been asking people who should/could be a prez candidate, but there's no clear frontrunner, let alone even some names....uggggg...

btw people, those here who are promoting Ron Paul, would do well to look up an expose on him which was published on commondreams.org sometime in the last month or so.....
He really is kind of an idiot (& his son is worse...). He may agree with progressives on a few issues, but it ends there. Why do we always have to settle for someone? And Bloomberg is no real friend of the 99%.

So who do we write in???... Maybe I'll go with Wavy Gravy!

A really sad but true opening paragraph. Has doing what's right for the Country become a thing of the past ? No matter which party takes power, doing what's right gets left behind once the votes are counted. It will be interesting to see who might step forward with another party. While there are many parties out there fielding candidates, only 2 get the nod when it comes down to who we can vote for. The rest are passed off as either irrelative or moonbat fringe. IF there was any sense of true democracy all parties would be treated equally and we would have serious dialogue on the issues the nation/republic faces. And out of this the best proposel would be selected for implementation. Dream on....kiddies special interest's rule. Change is needed and long overdue. However open rebellion via O W S will be dealt with harshly as per laws we might be fully aware of till they spring forth.

It's been said that the O W S movement if waiting for and seeking their "Kent State" moment. Be careful what you wish for ! Bloodshed and rioting is not the answer to anything ! What needs fixing has to be done within the legal framework. Violence just plays to the ruling party's favour and the reforms never happen. All a riotous O W S will do is give nobama another excuse not to fix the problems. Can't fix what's broke with all these damn rioters in the way. RIIIIGHT ?

What's happening today is like it's all falling out of the most destructive playbook ever written. NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY BY GARY ALLEN 1972 ! READ IT AND COMPARE WHERE WE'RE AT AND WHAT WAS WRITTEN SO LONG AGO. Once you read it and understand it you will see that it was never a conspiracy.... it was a bold plan and it just might come to pass.

Another happy fuck'n Monday ! See you next for some more good news. In the mean time Stay Frosty and stock up.

James,

You articulate and seem to know and understand many of the issues better than most. I think you should consider some kind of a political move in a bid to end the US corporate plantation and its thieving lords.

Some others to add to your list of 'confederacy of racketeers' would include the whole list of US federal government agencies, from the CIA, to Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, the IRS, and so on.

Also, very important, the FED and the big banks and the primary dealers, the MSM propaganda outlets, the corporate sponsored "NGO" propaganda groups, the Courts, the Church/Vatican. They are all part of this web.

The system needs to be completely repudiated. At the global center of it all is the Vatican and Central Banks which they own and control. Simply put, what you're seeing a push back against the Enlightenment by the old Roman Reich. Only now they don't call it the Roman Reich, now they call it the NEW WORLD ORDER. And the US is an integral part of that global Vatican fascist scheme.

I loved that first paragraph this morning. But like another reader, I was a little surprised not see any mention of the European debt/Greek default(?) issue. Oh well -- so much to comment on, so few pixels (and time)!

As a nation, we ARE a disgrace. But I know so many conscientious people doing good work -- trying desperately to undo or make up for the mess made by those in power -- we should try to keep them in mind. They, too, are American citizens. My wife does grueling work in an inner-city hospital, then spends several more hours every week helping to manage a free clinic in our town.

Anyway, we can camp out in the public squares as long as we like. I fear that the whole rotten, stinking body called Congress, and their richest, most selfish corporate masters, will NEVER give more than a symbolic inch to righting what is wrong. I am terrified that it will only take torches and pitchforks and the guillotine -- a bloody, ugly mess.

Money makes the world go around
The world go around
The world go around
Money makes the world go around
It makes the world go 'round.
Money,money,money,money,money......
OCCUPY THE SUPREME COURT,
OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED!

JK,

great essay this week. The opening is perhaps a little too wordy. But otherwise your prose hammers home the frustrating nature of living in country filled by idiots listening to the shilling of oh so many other more powerful idiots leading us to disaster.

Our "world leaders" continue their fantasies of installing "systemic to-big-to-fail banking fiefdoms" at the G20 summit. The new oracle that guides the markets of the world is the "FSB" - and it only works for banksters.

Throw out all the other science fiction. It was November, 2011 when the new world order was defined.

Long live GS! Long live BOA. God save JPM and Morgan Stanley. Bless us oh banksters for we have sinned - let us pray for your complete indulgence.

man, people, stop whining interminably about things you cannot change (without killing your sanity/health etc) and change what you can, viz. make your house smaller, greener, with indoor/outdoor gardening.

i guarantee you'll feel more satisfied.

and shut your phuqqing tv's off. 'back to the land', whether literally or to the extent you can wherever you happen to live, is great for your peace of mind.

am planting another 1,000 gladiolus down here in brazil, warm weather year round sure helps lol

tune in, turn on and drop out, within reason and ability...

peace peaceniks

The third order of business is to shut down the war industry and close hundreds of overseas military bases that are draining scarce public capital.

Amen to that, brother Jim.

And while we're at it, we ought to remove "In God We Trust" from all USA currency. It is obvious what we trust is an $671 Billion dollar defense budget (that is what Obama has requested).

We ought to take away Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, too.

My only disagreement with JHK is that we may have enough natural gas to use as a transition fuel to a post-oil world. We should not be squandering it to extract and refine dirty non-conventional oil.

It's like using fine wine to make cheap vinegar.

But whatever the gas question, JHK's right that 2012 will be one of those years to remember. I wonder if that unnamed figure might be Colin Powell? He was the only sane voice as Darth Cheney and his evil Jedi, W wrecked the nation.

QTIP:
I found a site last week and think you [and others]
will enjoy:
CRIMES OF THE TIMES / BLOGSPOT

Another is EMSNEWS/ Elaine Supkis

For those who want to see the Ny Times real agenda!!

In the 1960s the head of General Motors could say, with some justification, that what was good for GM was good for America. The market and the growth was right here: if GM was to prosper they had to help make sure that the people here could buy their stuff. But not now.

Now all the growth markets are elsewhere. What idiot would invest their money here? Every dollar that given to the wealthy, via tax breaks or whatever, is just money that flows out of the country, lost. What does help is anything that gets to people who actually spend money here, things like unemployment and food stamps. This money is spent here and circulates.

But money is power. The more money little people have, the more their power, the more potential to thwart the few and the wealthy. The wealthy, who control all things, are not about to let this happen.

The mote in another person's eye. To JHK raised on tales of terror by christians aimed at his people, mostly true by the way and now the Middle East raised on tales of terror commited by people JHK finds common cause.

So is Iran the incubator of the next Hitler or not? So them "jesus terrorists" will find common cause with those on the West Bank who's yaweh genocide is pre-ordained and sponsored by Raytheon and IMI (Israeli Military Industries).

I have no answers. But one thing must happen, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS MUST DIE all the myths of the 20th century must go and I mean everyone of them, even the ones that will get you arrested in Europe if you challenge them.

Regarding 'corporate personhood', good article here: "How Citizens United Twisted Decades of Legal Precedent to Empower Corporations" http://bit.ly/b2t7Kf

Brilliant! Great plan of action. Thank you for the awesome reading material. Corporations are sociopaths.

Jim,

Great weekly commentary. We have discussed a third party, and how important the 2012 election is to get reality before the voters. It is obvious that neither the Democrats nor Republicans are capable of doing that. To be really effective, a third party has to be more than a presidential run. It needs strong grass roots, and that means senatorial and congressional races. It should also include gubernatorial candidates as well. If our future is going to be more local, we need people at the state level who can put together ideas and programs. Real change is from the bottom up, not the top down. If nothing else the OWS and other like movements across the country have brought people of different backgrouns together in a common cause. We need to build on that. Viva the 99%!

Steve Knox

kulture kritic s post this week (link above, of course) is quite thought provoking, and well worth the time- and the take on rule of law is, i think, germane to our discussion...

To SmokeyJoe:

Colin Powell lied to the world in his speech to the UN that led to the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses. His early military career included whitewashing the My Lai massacre.

He may deserve a few brownie points for whatever candor he showed after being a useful tool of Bush-Cheney, but to look to the man as a political savior-figure is utter folly.

I don't fault JHK for mentioning Bloomberg, even if it is grasping at straws and no answer, since he can't be bought because he is already a plutocrat. Bloomberg did show his true colors in his reaction to Oakland OWS closing the port, even briefly, since any hint of Euro-style general strikes scares the eleites; he also showed his truly banal style of evil in the speech reported by Matt Tiabbi. BTW, Bllomberg news is just the financial news option for the elites vs. CNBC for the boobs. More content, same moral vacuums and false paradigms.

I'm sure JHK will address the greece-farce soon. Looking forward to it.

Two points really struck me from Max-JHK show: 1) parallels to 1950's in current decrepit Dem-Rep ineptitude and endemic corruption; 2) Effect of OWS movement on 2012 conventions. Civil unrest while pending Iran WW3 scenario plays out could make 2012 a turning point, not for the better.

I was musing this weekend about another historical comparison--the early 20th century trust busting by TR et al of industrial trusts vs. the unchallenged ascendency of even more damaging financial trusts, looting on a post-industrial scale with only ineffectual griping by the 99% while the same anti-trust laws are still on the books but not being enforced. How far we have fallen in 100 years!

How can any 'civilization" survive without the rule of law?

Aside from massive propaganda from MSM, I sometimes wonder if the subversion of the elites to eradicate any element of fairness and morality can be directly linked to the (planned) transformation of all professions into corporate-fascist modeled "businesses) (law, medicine, academia etc.).

Jim,

I agree that Bloomberg is less than ideal. He does seem to be the best hope of the current lot if only in that he can be somewhat of a populist when pushed enough. His commitment to certain things sustainable in NYC are a positive predictor of possibilities (Janette Sadik-Khan at NYCDOT for one).

Your first paragraph defines clearly all the obstacles blocking effective response to our problems. Or I should say our choice of responses under perceived (aka distorted) ideas of what Democratic choice means in 2011 - notwithstanding corporate person hood and it's contrivances.

As luck would have it, I am hosting an event in Easton, Pa on Nov 18-19 that is our best chance to reframe the battle against these forces; solutions outside the confines of "well settled law" and other judicial nonsense that lead to the corporatocracy we accept as normal.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) teaches a two-day Democracy School that strips away 150 years of law and lure we've been conditioned to believe. Getting outside the framework of the OSHAs, EPAs, SECs and other alphabet soup organizations allows us to focus on the real question: should we accept a regulated rate of destruction by the legal fictions called corporate entities?

Should we be happy being killed more slowly at pre-determined rates by toxins, abusive work policies and ecological destruction based on the mandates of these agencies or should we simply ban these corporate activities - both by making their practices illegal and by further defining the issue by failing to recognize corporations as persons under the law - at the local level? The Home Rule Charter form of government is the first step toward achieving local self-governance, which Easton passed four years ago. It allows municipalities to write their own local Constitutions.

This is what will be discussed by twenty leading citizen activists and city administrators at the Easton event this month. Jim, I spoke to Duncan about CELDF's Dem. School at the after-party in Buffalo during last month's National Trust Conference. He is more than welcome to cover it for the podcast. You have an open invitation as well if your schedule allows. CELDF's website states the following goal;

"Helping community groups and municipalities write and adopt laws that assert community rights, including the right to local self-government, the rights of nature, and the subordination of corporate privilege to the rights of the community."

It is a given - and also stated at the CELDF website - that there can not be any hope of creating sustainable communities for a difficult future without establishing local self-governance. As a classic example of what is needed today, CELDF uses the difference between regulatory coercion and constitutional change. The abolitionist movement never lobbied for better treatment of slaves; not better food or housing or work hours. They simply rejected outright the idea of human beings as private property.

Jim, this is the route we must take today in fighting corporate person hood and property rights if we are to preserve and resurrect all the things you have described that have been lost in our suburban wasteland these many past decades.

NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON was being sold in the 1960s in all the local stores I visited. The author, John Stormer, did not blame the usual suspects right-wing/conservatives/WASPs like to blame: Catholics, Jews, and the like; Stormer blamed communist sympathizers. The commies!

Since the USSR no longer exists, and Vietnam and "Red China" are our trading partners, the "commie threat" is non-existent and Stormer's book is irrelevant now.

Jim,
Long time reader of your's ( Long Emergency got me hooked). Hate to be picky, but Lawrence Kotikoff really is LAURENCE KOTIKOFF... I am sensitive because I have the same problem with my middle name. Thanks for spending the time you do to keep us all aware and pissed off.

Forget about a "savior" emerging. Won't happen. If such a person were to arise, he/she would be suicided post haste. Too many people would lose too much. Our salvation will be the collapse, unfortunately. If we were a saner, more rational, more considerate species then a different outcome might be possible. But, then, if that were the case, we probably wouldn't be in the pickle we currently are in.

Regarding Bernie Madoff - I see him as an angel of G-d. If you carefully analyze Madoff's actions you realize he is really similar to a Dr. Emil Bronner only under a different guise. Madoff swindled those who were secret swindelers themselves. He offered impossibly good returns to people who mostly should have known better. All the while he was "feeding" them their interest from their own pool of capital. What a hoot! A sort of financial Hannibal Lecter, feeding them their own brains! What a perfect scenario! And he knew he would ultimately be caught. So why did he do it? I view Madoff's actions as a position statement: his clients deserved no better. Incidentally, Picasso held his later clients in the same abject contempt. We should thank Madoff, in my opinion. He is paying the price for exposing the rot.

Speaking of Madoff, I saw a little blub in the entertainment corner of the news that DeNiro has signed on to portray him in an upcoming film.

Might be interesting.

Jim, you hit at the heart of much of what is moiling about in the poisonous soup out there. However, I must respectfully disagree with your hopeful comments about the likes of a Mike Bloomberg as a third party spoiler.

Matt Taibbi's most recent posting on this very subject attests to - and says in far more eloquent and accurate terms than I ever could - the true colors that Bloomberg flies.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8241-focus-mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment

As for any successful Third Party "messiah", unfortunately U.S. history has succinctly exhibited the rewards its society reserves for individuals with truly progressive postulations. Fictitiously think Warren Beatty's "Bulworth"

Let me deal first, as is my custom, with form before substance.

FORM:

Jim said: It also happens that Bloomberg is neither a Republican or a Democrat

Although it is considered old fashioned, I much prefer nor rather than or in a neither/nor type sentence. It makes the point so much more strongly.

Who was the Supreme Court kidding when they proposed in 2010 that corporations have a personal stake in politics.

Was it by accident or on purpose that Jim ended this question with a period rather than a question mark? His question was entirely rhetorical so perhaps it should be treated as a statement ending with a period. Interesting ... I have never thought about this before. This bears further research.

SUBSTANCE

Chicago in 1968 was nothing compared to what might go down in Charlotte, NC (Democrats) and Tampa, FLA (Republicans) in 2012.

I can hardly believe it ... it's been 42 years. For those too young to remember the '68 conventions I recommend Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer. Not long before I had spent a couple of months as a member of an audit team in Chicago and we stayed at a hotel/motel (I forget its name) directly across the street from the huge (732 room, I believe it was) Conrad Hilton Hotel. The bar and lounge was at ground level looking out on Michigan Ave. Mailer's description of a man being hurled through the plate glass of this lounge where I'd spent many an evening trying to "get lucky" brought home to me the violence that went down in Chicago that summer. But beyond this reminiscence, I just don't see the potential for violence in venues like Tampa and Charlotte vs the much larger and more volatile cities of Miami and Chicago. I've spent time in all four places and have some feel for their dynamic. But who knows, I didn't see the OWS movement lasting beyond the World Series.

After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors.

I am extremely wary of what is termed "the public interest." Invariably it turns out to be someone else's idea of what is good for me than my own idea.

Many people, in my view, have a badly distorted and dangerous view of "freedom." They are very much against both flesh-and-blood persons and so-called corporate persons being free to act on their own behalf rather than for the public interest (reference discussion yesterday with Bustin J). As much as I dislike her ham-handed writing style, this issue was at the heart of all Ayn Rand's writings. Are we or are we not free to be selfish?

Are we or are we not free to be selfish?

-------------------

You most certainly are free to be selfish in your personal life, but not when the public interest is involved. Selfishly eat both your cereal and your wife's cereal if you want, but don't tear up the street in front of your house because the color of the pavement offends you. That would be against public interest. Capish?

There is no knight in shining armor who will come to save the system. What we've got - this whole unworkable load of bullshit is unreformable. It's rotten to the core and it pervades every level. The only solution is to let it collapse. And it will not be pretty. Only then will something better be able to take its place.

Mike Hunt

Hi Helen
Great "gotcha" question, but I will try to give an answer. Mainly the reason I am not out on the streets is because in between rubbernecking our world disaster, now in progress, and downing the popcorn, I am doing my bit to prepare for likely outcomes. That means watching the world situation closely is part of that effort. My family has moved to a much smaller abode, we consume much less than we did in the past, we have paid attention to our finances and have made good progress, we have garden plans for spring in the works, etc... In short I am taking care of my business. Good enough for you? If not oh well.

Also, I feel the big cities and large crowds are not a smart place to be at this time. While I admire the OWS folks and applaud their efforts, I think the national situation is a big powder keg ready to blow. I don't want to be in the middle when it does. Things will collapse and go to hell just the same, regardless, if I am in the middle of all the action or not.

Besides, the OWS folks seem oblivious of some current events that have much more serious consequences than our very serious financial pickle. What can they be? Well how about the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima, that has recently been reported to have resumed criticality in reactor 2. This "nuclear volcano" is spewing out murderous radiation on a daily basis. It might be nice if someone in authority addressed this situation and organized an effective response to minimize the world irradiation. TEPCO and Japan's response has so far bordered on criminally incompetent/insane. That's just one example, I won't drone on too much.

So, everyone is doing what they feel is important for them. Determining what is important in these crazy times is quite difficult. I muddle along as best I can and try to tend to my business. Besides:) I like popcorn.

have a great day!

Time to go hang out some laundry. Gave up the clothes drier 2 years ago, and my wife floored me the other day when she said she was ready to start using a wringer washer when we move to the mountains!! By the time we get there I'm not sure I'll have to run any wiring or plumbing at all! What a ride this has been!

"These two giant, useless, political bucket shops need to be put out of business and something else has to take their place."

Why does something need to take their place?

Too much "gist in the mill" to comment on this week. However, countrygirl got it right in that for the past century most meaningful change in North America at least has come from the bottom up rather than top down. Politicans or leaders carrying the ball only after the ground swell becomes too big to ignore. Having said that in this outpost of the Empire (Canada) There is a third party which is pushing for a quasi-change in the sense of more corporate taxes, social justice,environmental regulation etc. as adocated in moondog's blog. How far this can and will go will be interesting to watch. The OWS movement is a "wedge" issue for them as some wish to endorse the OWS movements' goals and others wish to pursue the more conventional political route which would result in smaller incremental changes. Either way for the first time in Canada's history a "third party" is the offical opposition and could form government in the next election. This has not gone unnoticed as the corporate media has lauched assaults on them. The indication is that even the small quasi change they represent is a threat to the status quo. Remember Canada is to the U.S. what Poland was to the old Soviet Union; a semi independent state. (or Gaul to Rome if you like old historical anologies) And we all remember what the Polish Solidarity movement resulted in! In other words the forces of change be they OWS or even more conventional ones need to be prepared for a "push back" like they have not seen before.

Folks, I just got smacked in the face with some bizarre reality this morning while waiting for Jim's column to post.
On a whim, I decided to type "American Spectator" into my browser to see what the conservative types were saying about the OWS movement.
The articles concerning OWS were negative to the point of hysteria. That was rather to be expected. But the comments from our brothers and sisters who make up the conservative portion of the 99% really floored me.
The vitriolic criticism expressed by these flag waving, status quo supporting, Republican party insider wannabes with 3 mortgages on their trailers was really acidic. They even referred to the folks out there fighting for THEIR best interests as "dirty, smelly hippies"!
It jarred me into a stark reality. The corruption in government we could deal with. The corporations could eventually be reigned in again. The elites could be made to see that even they cannot export our jobs at will when the workforce is united and organized.
But these evangelical NASCAR freaks living in the '50s are another story! They actually see everything the OWS movement is trying to do as a communist plot against their beloved land of the free. THEY are the ones we'll never convince of the truth, until we pry their guns from their cold, dead fingers.
And right now, those guns can't wait to sight us in for disagreeing with their holy icons, the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Beyond the signs on sidewalks to concrete action.

Move your money - its the only language they understand. A mass move would pop these banks like the inflated gasbags they really are.

Stop buying Chinese crap, buy less crap overall and seek out durable American made goods to meet basic needs.

Start using more cash, silver and barter and less plastic - the 1% rake 3.5% off the top of every transaction - its a voluntary national sales tax.

Sign some of the many excellent Petitions at the new "We the People" page (Whitehouse.gov) and start one of your own.

Take GOD off our money and go back to the original motto (E Pluribus Unum). It was only changed in 1956 due to the Cold War/McCarthyite madness. Making money our GOD is the root of the problem, even Roosevelt thought it was sacreligious.

It’s probably safe to assume that the looming 2012 financial meltdown is probably going to be severe enough to make the 2008 meltdown look like a dress rehearsal in comparison. If so, it’s unlikely that the now familiar political rhythms will have even a notional resonance with that reality.

SISA Status Report No. 1: Perseverance brings Good Fortune

http://www.Thesisa.org/

If corporations are "people", then aggrieved individuals should sue them frequently in small claims court where lawyers are not allowed.

Never respond to or ask anything of Babylon, the rest of your natural born life.

======================

And never use Babylon built roads. Never drink pure water made safe by Babylon. Never take waste to Babylon waste-treatment plants. Never use Babylon licensed air waves to listen to radio. Never use the Babylon-created internet... Whoops!

My five year old just asked me what

"the Ponziconomy" is...?

From the mouth of babes.

???????

Seriously??? JHK has never heard of the Green Party, formed in opposition to money-driven politicians?

Get corporate money out of politics? That's a Green Party policy, and has been since its founding.

Stop war? Non-violence is one of the four key values, along with environmental wisdom, which every Green knows means stopping fossil fuel burning.

Bring back Glass Steagall? Actually, we need a complete overhaul of our monetary system, and a Tobin tax, just for starters, both part of the Green Party platform.

Someone has already stepped forward, and is starting to run a campaign, Jill Stein.

http://www.jillstein.org/

Don't diss the Greens! Of course, we're a small party. That's because we don't have corporate backing. You can't have it both ways.

In a country in which the Dems and Repubs compete to sell the government to the highest corporate bidder (and I'm quoting John McCain here), any party which doesn't take corporate funds is destined to be small and struggling.

It would be much for helpful to join in and help with people power, not sit on the sidelines and snidely sneer at the struggle of non-corporate funded campaigns.

Has Jim then renounced the Democratic Party? If so, bout time. But since the Zionists control our banking, media and foreign policy, it doesn't matter which Party gets in, even if it is a conventional Third Party. Vote Ron Paul - they hate him and there's good reason for that; reasons that are good for us.

Great vocabulary words this week Jim, especially "catamites", which means homosexual child prostitutes. I first read that word in "Island", by Peter Benchly, author of "Jaws", in reference to a surviving colony of English pirates culturally stuck in the 17th century, on a Caribbean Island, who were still attacking yachts.

The idiotic political polarization which obtains in this country is caused in part by our low voting turnout. Perhaps we need to require that everyone goes to the polls to vote as they are in Australia, the foreign country most like the United States according to a recent article in the New York Times. Of course the Republicans wouldn't like that, because they benefit from lower turnout, which is why they are pushing for stricter regulations pertaining to photo I.D.s for voters in order to prevent "fraud". For "fraud" substitute "poor people voting their economic self interest".

People will be ready for radical change only after the current regime has collapsed. And by collapsed I mean an unambiguous global economic depression which has essentially flattened capitalism forcing urgent collective action in order to forestall massive starvation in the developed countries. As it stands right now there is still too much room for people to continue to inhabit their own little solipsistic bubbles of false egotistical optimism.

I joined transfer day.

I'm in for the Tampa version. Bring a helmet. Bring some pads -- you never know.

So after carving out the wealth of the country, destroying the economy, we are now going to frack ourselves in a last ditch desperate attempt to keep the music going?

We are going to confront Peak Oil on a land base polluted with uranium tailings, chemical pesticides and thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste. If we ruin the fresh water resource as well we are truly "fracked".

Never got this notion of "saving" the Earth. If the CO2 level increased above human habitation, would the earth care? Maybe the earth would even "like" it better, more room for trees afterall....

On that same thought....it often seems the people who least like other people, most want to "save" the earth, if they don't like people who are they saving it for?

"Of course, the first order of business is to get corporate money out of politics. Are we capable of doing that?"

Not a snowball's chance in hell. As you've stated, we've gone in exactly the opposite direction lately.

I went to Max Keiser.com to hear the show so many people have mentioned and couldn't find it.

Where is it?

JHK for President! Good post, good ideas.

Corporations are sociopaths. They need to be tasered!

According to the DSM-IV the major component of this disorder is “the reduced ability to feel empathy for other people".

In this economy large corporations turn their American workers into permatemps. Fast cycling of herds of cheap benefit free permatemps before unemployment claims can acquire enough months to count saves the rat-bastards even more money.
Screams from lives ruined as middle class jobs fall away are unheard as the new broken unemployed simply disappear, life in America.

Tasering is not good enough for these people. As legal persons corporation need to be locked down and trussed up like Hannibal Lecter.

Has anyone looked at Dmitry Orlov's suggestions. they seem rather agreeable to me.

The post from the person in Pennsylvania talking about fracking and what it's doing to them really got to me. The Alberta tar sands will be just as bad and it's all for nothing, nothing at all.

Cue Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Sooner than we think I suspect as financial and environmental collapse collide and their combined effects bring the whole civilization thing crashing down.

Wow, Jim, you speak a lot of truth in this post. Your two strongest sentiments:

"Corporations are sociopaths. They need to be tasered!" (Why haven't I heard this suggestion before? Perfect.)

and ...

"This winter will be the Occupy Movement's Valley Forge." (A daunting, even chilling, yet inspiring thought ... )

To the people defending right wing Christianity- not only is it very possible that Christians have more dead bodies in their pile than any other religion, the right wing Christians in this country are blood-thirsty and ready to kill.

And the Air Force headquarters in Colorado Springs, which is also headquarters to James Dobson, and other extremely evil people, has, by some accounts, been infiltrated by crazy Christians.

If that doesn't scare normal people, I don't know what will.

For what it is worth, I am going to the OWS protest and camping out for a week. I am traveling to and from my job from the protest (my work place has a shower). This isn't just for content for my blog (while I will write about it), or to make me feel good (it will be cold and wet and I hate crowds), but it is just about all I can do these days seeing how my writing online, signing various protest letters/etc, and trying to gather together my own house (third month in a row I come close to zero in the bank in all my accounts). I believe that many of those out there in the park are the lunatic fringe, but many more have jobs and homes and are trying to play the game that is stacked against us.
My own rants can be found at the usual space: schwerpunkter at wordpress dot com.

Wage

Max Keiser and his show can be found on the RT website at the bottom of the page, right side. He is an absolute hoot. He really tells it like it is, a refreshing commentator who is also good for a few laughs.

For everyone else here, as I said in my first post today, the "Western Democracies" have openly abandoned democracy. So all this discussion of the 2012 election is really sort of moot. The man or woman with the most money in the old campaign "war chest" will win, plain and simple. In other words the presidency will be bought by the 0.01 % --OK- everyone got that? And that bought and paid for minion will enact more policies to benefit those 0.01%. Any questions?

The Occupy Movement in many American and Canadian cities is already showing signs of weakness as the idealists are either pushed out or become outnumbered by the mentally ill, hard-core drug users, homeless youth and anyone else drawn by the prospect of free housing, food and medical services. The recent drug-related death of a 23 year-old woman at Occupy Vancouver following a number of drug overdoses at Occupy Vancouver, the violence at the Oakland ports, and the disillusionment voiced by many former Occupy protesters that the movement still has no coherent agenda is leading many to believe that the Occupy movement has outlived its' welcome. God only knows what will take its place as the initial burst of optimism and idealism that greeted the movement's arrival is replaced by the realities of life in an Occupy encampment, Here's hoping the brighter minds in the movement are able to translate their political passion into a movement that can change the Democratic party from within.

"shame them"

Get real. They do not care what you or I think of them. They have the power and the money. That is all they care about.

Mr. Kunstler:
How about a fifth order of business, i.e. those able-bodied souls who don't produce, don't eat?
The uber-welfare state is right behind the war empire in bankrupting us as a nation.

Great Post Amigo.

Cheered me right up, as usual.

Yeah. Fuck Bloomberg.

"Portents of winter
and the toothless chatter
of flag-draped traitors

vies with a fog of lies
spread by Koch Brother messenger boys"
-JHK-

Hidden messages and poetry this week, JHK?
Most impressive - shades of Whitman and Thoreau? -
Or someone of more modern vintage, perhaps?

"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realise there's none left
'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long that
Even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone"
-Coolio-

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime"
Honoré de Balzac

Careful Jim.

A lot of the people at the Occupies are TATTOOED.

(shudder)

Notice how Obama always fares better against a specific GOP candidate as opposed to a generic one. Derrida might have termed this the power of the 'unmarked term'. Likewise, an OWS movement empowers itself in eschewing partisan politics while simultaneously declaring a manifesto.

Being taking for granted is not the dynamic of political leverage.

I watched Network last night; it didn't cause me to say what I'm about to say, but it reinforced the vehement hatred for everything fascist (read American government and the corporations) that we have no way to escape on a daily basis. So here you have it: I truly wish Al Qaeda would return--on the State of the Union address--with a big enough bomb to ensure that every scumbag in the Capitol building is surely dead. Period. Fuck you America.

We're so civilized...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0XcH6d-1Ms&feature=related

"Surely in a population of 310 million you can find more than a few resolute personalities who refuse to just sit back and watch the sickening spectacle of inept vacillation."

You would think so. I keep trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but alas am again disappointed. All the blogs read the same. We're on the Titanic and it's sinking and everyone wants to argue about who's going to provide the last lifeboat.

St. Roy and lsjogren got it right. Two words: Population Control. Population-as in how to reduce it drastically. Control-as in how to retain and expand our power. These are the only 2 problems the Powers That Be are interested in solving. Just accept it.

Sensitivity training for 'the troops'....
And who is Shafiq Mubarak? All I can find out is that he is a Pro Sol contractor (?) hired by the Marine Corps Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning to help implement "the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the winning of hearts and minds." At least that's how Col. Furness puts it. According to the North County Times, Mubarak didn't come to the US until 2008 -- from where the story doesn't say -- but has been working with US troops in A-stan "for much of the past decade."

How is that? Why is that? Dunno. What the story does report is that Mubarak teaches the do's and don't's of sharia -- kind of, Islam for Leathernecks.

Mubarak teaches US Marines:

Don't spit toward Mecca...................

Don't urinate toward Mecca......................

Don't sleep with your boots toward Mecca.!!!!!!!!!!

In other words, Mubarak teaches US Marines to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca, and to be guided by that
magnetic North for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene -- in accordance with sharia (Islamic law).

This goes well, of course, with ISAF's guidance to all troops to revere the Koran and its teachings.

[What next, prayer rugs?]

Mubarak told the North County Times:

"We can't win just by fighting," said Mubarak, who came to the U.S. less than three years ago after working with American forces in Afghanistan for much of the past decade. "Sitting with tribal elders, learning their problems and helping them is crucial."

Asoka ...chance fer you to give this a 'thumbs up'.

I'm sick to death of seeing the dung-brained around here type: "what about Ron Paul?" You know what Ron Paul proves, idiots? That you are NOT required to wear a hood to be in the Klan. Now, shut up and go away.

After Reading Matt Taibbi's Blog at Rolling Stone (Taibbiblog) it sounded like Bloomberg, Mr. Corporation Himself, wants to transfer the blame away from the banks, their CDS, their MBS, their CDO scams and put the blame on the scammed mortgagee.

We need a third party candidate. That is for sure.

I listened to Danny Glover's speech at the Occupy Oakland, and he was passionate. He might just be the face to unite all the Occupy locations and move this movement forward.

See the speech here:

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Jimbo...you can shut down the Clusterphucker forever. Solar Highways will save us:

http://www.wimp.com/solarhighways

ok. Thank God that there isn't going to be an easy way out? Wage is onto ...doomed suburbs?

You should be dancin'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trHRiFzduW0

WOW! Too much stuff for me to take in all at once. Some good points made by JHK this week, despite his usual vitriole. Some vague observations thus far:

Asoka seems to be in a forever state of love/hate realtionship with Obama.

Tripp made a good point in that we all tend to vilify the people who live off of the "welfare state". How many of you who have mortgages realize you're one of these "welfare queens"? I could go on, but hopefully you get my drift.

Q said something that sounded quite telling that the big banksters who received the bailouts from us working stiffs are simply benefiting from their OWN hard work and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, despite having intentionally swindled the American investors and TAXPAYERS (?) A very large WTF inserted here!

Jimmy (and or Bustin) seem to believe that the baby boomers are to blame for having grown up in a world of oil abundance...as if they could have possibly helped the year they were born ..'46-'64??

As for me, I feel like ya kinda have to take the cards you were dealt and try not to bitch too much about it. If you're still young and healthy enough, figure out how to survive and thrive either where you are or find someplace you can travel. And if you CAN organize on a local level, by all means, FREAKING DO IT! Lord knows we need you now!

And waiting for some type of land redistribution or BIG SOCIAL SAVIOR EVENT to happen, via government or coup, what have you...sorry, it just ain't gonna happen. Not here! Just my .02. ;0

Joe Frazier is dead and gone, one of the greats.

A word for H. Cain. Nigger.

War is not the answer. Never was. Never will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFRgEQGIDzs

War is not the answer. Never was. Never will.

A $671 BILLION Defense budget for 2012 eh, is that the new version of audacity of hope? Hope for what, to annihilate every living thing on the friggin' planet? Just one more reason to look for another option. Problem is, right now I'm not seeing it on the political horizon. How does a D. Ratigan / E.Warren ticket sound? What can I say, I like articulate people who want to shake things up.

Obama started to lose me when he didn't close Gitmo after making it such a moral issue during the campaign. Things have gone mostly sideways ever since. I was really hoping he'd grow a pair, but it's obvious by now that's not going to happen. "So fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

That said, given the reality check we're all 'bout to encounter the real danger is ourselves and whether we decide to take the easy (though messy) way out via war and / or fascism. Lets all hope we don't get played again into doing some other country's dirty little war. Good morning, I r a n...what's not to like about perpetural war? Good for growth, right?

Thanks to all here at the CF'dN for sharing info, I'm going to check out Jill Stein.
Forever the optimist...

Galbraith was an over rated jacass

So the Bible says that we are our "brother's keepers," yet why are all these rabid Holy Rollers here in the US such greedy individualist conservatives? It makes no sense.

Good point Vlad.

I'd add that a perfect relationship is when two people want the same thing.

Myrtle said, "Jimmy (and or Bustin) seem to believe that the baby boomers are to blame for having grown up in a world of oil abundance...as if they could have possibly helped the year they were born ..'46-'64?? "

I do not generally hold ageist views. Its just that, at some future date it may not be amusing to an audience of younger people to reminisce about burning gasoline by the gallon on a routine basis. Or that one ate fish and other animal flesh. Or were able to peer into a glowing box and listen to something called "music", as you huddle around your burnt charcoal and turnip dinner, figuring out which person the group will kill and eat next.

* Not illogical/irrational*

Why do people who oppose the government pay taxes?

Breaking news from Basten dot calm: "Accompanied by her prominent lawyer, Gloria Allred, Bialek accused Cain of making a sexual advance one night in mid-July 1997, when she had traveled to Washington to have dinner with him in hopes he could help her find work.

She said the two had finished dinner and were in a car for what she thought was a ride to an office building.

"Instead of going into the offices he suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt toward my genitals," she said.

"He also pushed my head toward his crotch," she added.

Bialek said she told her boyfriend, an unidentified pediatrician, as well as a longtime male friend about the episode."

To sum up,

Even though your husband is a doctor, you still expect a powerful, rich pizza magnate not to try and go for First Base after he's taken you out on a dinner date.

Poor Herman. Like most men he's a clumsy Lothario. Hes probably used to paying for sex.

The media is suggesting that we should know who just gutted Herman Cain in the social arena. That would be Gloria Allred, a high powered lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment. She will proceed to pubic lynching and/or settlement. Herman may rue the day he stepped into the national spotlight.

The economy is sick.

I hope it dies

Some time ago I read a very interesting book: Confessions of an economic hit man.
It was clearly explained the behavior of the big corporations and the IMF.
What they usually do to grab ALL the raw materials and the richness of a country of the third world.
First they reduce the country in heavy debts, lending money to build "infrastructures" that have very little to do with the name, or with the growth of the economy of the country.
They are exclusively on the interest of the big corporations which plan to be there.
This was John Perkin’s job (the economic hit man).
Second step is making the country insolvent, third step is Stealing all what they can, reducing the population in misery and so having people working for the big corporations for 30 dollars a month.
This allows the big managers to have a few private jets, the high class whores and similia, while people starve even working 12 hours a day, seven days a week...

Well , at that time I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand that, after the third world it was the time for us.
Just as the written phrase I read when I was little, in the cemetery where my grandparents were buried: We were like you, you will be like us.

And people still do not understand.
First was Greece, now is Italy.
And France and Germany laugh.

We were like you, YOU will be like us.

The pattern is the same:
First putting the country in debts, then giving more money to pay the interests of the debts.
Then increasing the interests and obliging to more debts to pay the interests.
Finally stealing all what they can, making the population in misery, working for less and less, more and more.

IMF, International Mafia Federation, nobody sees that you are but a copy of the Italian Mafia.
Same breed, same ways, but you were smart enough to legalize yourself.
Nevertheless you are as criminal as the “unlegalized” Mafia.

Who's fooling whom?? Last week while all the European "happy talk" was going on, yields on 1-year Greek notes went to 212% up from 144% just one WEEK before that. The implied probability of Greek default is ONE-HUNDRED percent. Yet even as I write this, the news media are talking about "progress" in Greek debt restructuring talks. Really? With WHICH GOVERNMENT? Who is asking THAT!? They don't quite have one at the moment.

The problem with investing in any developed-world stockmarket is that you might, indeed, have all these numb-nuts running it up ten or even twenty percent above current levels. However, when you actually look at life on the ground in Italy, Greece, Spain, or even here in the USA where "living with Mom and Dad" at 35 is no longer as rare as a politician's integrity, you start to understand that your downside is LIMITLESS. You're playing Russian Roulette with your life's savings (assuming you're a dinosaur like me and you have some) but the gun has four bullets, not one.

Rest assured that Mr. Bernanke is viciously aiming at you savers out there because, with a clenched jaw, he's telling you that he's going to do everything in his power to drive you into risk assets ... otherwise you'll watch food and fuel inflate while your purchasing power decreases. Well, if Mr. Bernanke is the "irresistible force" then I'm the "immovable object" because I will
NOT buy stuff that requires a SCHEDULE D AT TAX TIME.

The problem is that the developed world, which we're trying mightily to move OUT of, sold their souls to the globalists who don't care that the implementation of their ideals, the foremost being outsourcing, means that the living conditions of the world's workers are all converging toward shanty towns, small dwellings with 8 or 10 people, rents higher than monthly salaries, etc..

Take part in any and all local OWS activity or even start your own. Yes, it IS class warfare, only, for at least this brief second, WE are starting to do it back to THEM after a generation of complacency.

E.

The Recovery Causes The End of the Recovery.
***********************************************************

That's the paradox of the current machinations of the Fed. Anybody who even casually looks at the prices of stuff may have noticed that while the Dow, after 6 yo-yo trips in two months, has finally, once again, surmounted the 12,000 mark. However, the price of the recovery IS the recovery because as the Dow rises, so does the price of OIL and FOOD.

What's odd is that the FED created this with QE1 and QE2 and we had riots in Egypt and Yemen, not about "democracy" but about SURVIVAL. Now, the ECB has flooded the world's banking system so it only makes sense that this will spill over here just as our QE's spilled over to the rest of the world.

These banksters are cynical, sinister bastards who are WORSE than murderers. Instead of killing people outright, they're making living conditions universally hellish around the globe for the 99% that are not "high net worth individuals". The paradox, of course, lies in the phrase "net worth" because NEVER has money had less correlation with REFINEMENT and CULTIVATION than it has in this Brave New Millenium.

Little wonder that RUSSIA, a nation of mafiosi-run businesses and municipalities, has had its currency bid up recently and the Commercials have their first long ruble positions versus the dollar. Yup, 'tis true. Russia cannot stop bleeding population because despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, it appears that it sucks even MORE under "capitalism" ... or at least their own faked version of it. We have our own faked version, thank you!!

The world's economies?? We're all LAS VEGAS NOW, BABY!!

E.

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E.
You can thank us and the Neoliberals for the "capitalism" Russia has. We screwed them royally, but I think in the end we will be the biggest losers. There will be a tipping point where everything we do is such a sham, that nothing the IMF and WTO will change the toxicity of Quadrillions of worthless paper.

I suggest you check out Zero Hedge. The last two days have been amazing--The international fraud is almost beyond belief.
---------------------------

Patrizia,
I don't know whether you checked out my comment Mon am. I discussed the whole mafia thing there. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman","Shock Doctrine" and "Griftopia" are books that should be a required reading for anyone who wants to understand what this obscenity we call global capitalism is. They describe the same process in different ways.This thing is so out of control I can't imagine how it can possibly continue.

I know Obama has been an abject failure to get us going in any direction that would be different from the administration before, but just remember, it's a global disaster and the power elite can't change the direction. O is a globalist and neoliberal just like the Republicans and most of the Democrats are, so just understand that this is the system.

Good luck finding anyone that can change this--it has to break before it can change.

Suggested Zero Hedge article from yesterday:

Presenting The Latest Eurodebt Exposure Masking Scam Courtesy Of Morgan Stanley: Level 1 To Level 2 Transfers

Just scroll down the page a bit. Other good articles as well.

Was looking over a couple of book reviews this morning and came across this little gem; "A landscape systematically vandalized by corporatocracy". I'd say that pretty much describes our surrounds. Sounds like something JHK would write.
Anyone read "Dark Ages America, the Final Phase of Empire" by Moris Berman? I need some more uplifting lite reading...before Jim releases "The End of Magic".
Ah, another CF'dN morning!

Convention in Charlotte...how appropriate...out of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. Charlotte ranks way down at 49th in Walkability.

http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/?page=5

The Convention Center in Charlotte is across the street from the NASCAR Hall of Fame!

The Convention Center is next to the Interstate that cuts through downtown--which consists of countless number of Kunstler's famous "parking lagoons."

With the wall of the freeway on one side and the lagoons of parking, the Center should be defensible from the rabble. The nearby Bank of America Stadium and Time Warner Cable Arena should make excellent holding pens.

Actually, since Interstates 277 and 77 conveniently and closely ring downtown you could just seal off downtown from the foreclosed masses surrounding it.

The Federal Reserve Building is just a couple blocks from the Convention Center. Charlotte is now the 2nd largest banking center in the country. How appropriate. Maybe a lot of those Wall Streeters living in the Hamptons, Greenwich and Manhattan have a pied-a-terre in Charlotte in case they need to escape the concentrations of unhappy people in the NYC area.

The Center is sandwiched between streets named "Stonewall" and "Martin Luther King Jr." :)

check out the satellite map photos on the web.

A more appropriate (even symbolic?) place could not have been picked at this point in our deterioration.

----------

Tampa gets an 89 score out of 100...but I'm a little suspicious that that just includes the core area. http://www.walkscore.com/score/tampa

Unrelated to the above, San Francisco gets a high walkability score...because those people were looking at a FLAT map. Some places that are just 6 blocks apart are a walk up and down that only a mountain climber could love--and that very few people actually walk.

And I personally know two Republicans who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. My mother-in-law, and the Marine sniper I worked with, both because George Bush was such an idiot that they went with the intelligent candidate.

I know three Democrats who voted for Ralph Nader because they were so pissed off at Gore when he supported those Cubans who had the little motherless boy locked in a closet, so he couldn't go back to his daddy.

There were actually a lot of Republicans who voted for Ralph Nader. This is down the Democratic memory hole.

But facts don't matter when they interfere with the Democratic storyline.

By the way, Wage -

You call my stance on reducing LEGAL immigration into the US - "bizarre."

That's extreme.

Population growth is the linchpin of all of the world's problems. And it's the driver of all the US policies that you decry - from military expenditures to the decline of US lower and middle classes.

==========================================
Even asoka. went on record last week in agreement:
"The United States needs negative population growth," he said.

We need intelligent ways to achieve this goal - before climate change, disease, or famine -

do it for us.

Keiser Report: Fed, Treasury & Holy Troika (E207)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIiH4RwM5pk&feature=share via @youtube

Once when I was in college, I lived in a “cooperative” but I found that it was not all that cooperative and mostly it was filled with hippie-types. And although I classify myself as a left-leaning Democrat, I like being clean and wearing conventional clothes. I do like material objects and have worked to acquire a few of them because they are nice to have. But I don’t need to starve 3rd world people or rape the Earth to get the money to buy luxury items. I am not in competition with my friends on who can have the most toys. We all have a few toys and that seems to be enough for each of us. It is a pleasant, ordinary life but for far too many, it seems to be slipping away. The very rich seem to want more and more and more. When will they ever be satisfied?

So I will again plant my veggie garden in the spring, encourage the use of birth control, plan to put up solar panels and vote for Obama who seems like a far better choice than any of the GOP candidates currently available. Voting for Obama may not save the Earth, may not end world hunger, may make the birthers even crazier than ever but what other choice is there? Perhaps the Tea Party will split off from the GOP to support their own radical candidates but that seems unlikely. The GOP will get the Tea Party in line by pandering to their irrational desire to end abortion and crowd the planet with yet billions more hungry, poor people. Sometimes I think self-destruction must be a gene in the human DNA.

And I get sick of the ignorant comments about Mexicans.

Like, they should stay home and fight for a better society.

The nerve of spineless americans, who passively watched two stolen elections, criticizing Mexicans, who occupied Mexico City with over a million people, protesting their stolen election!

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Lopez-Obrador-supporters-occupy-heart-of-Mexico-Ci-30009995.html

Americans criticizing Mexicans for their drug wars, which weren't anywhere NEAR this bloody until the US military got its nose under the tent.

And it's american drug appetites which feed the drug warlords in the first place, so to criticize the free market for supplying it is incredibly hypocritical.

And it was NAFTA that threw so many peasants off their land in the first place.

So, yes, I get extremely annoyed at clueless americans pointing fingers at mexicans, so it's hard for me to get all worked up about people being here illegally.

Throw the employers in jail. That's my solution.